Exposed To All, Witnessed By None
by LostInEnigmas
Summary: Sam Winchester has lost a lot of things, the most startling being his will to live. As he descends into madness in front the unseeing eyes of his family, will they notice how desperate things have gotten, or will their blissful ignorance be the nail in Sammy's coffin? Sammy's losing it, and at this point, he has nothing to gain back. (Limp!Sam Angst!Sam)
1. Tired

I say I'm tired out a pure necessity of needing something to say. I'm not profoundly interesting to my family or even all that remotely important, so when I'm faced with a situation that warrants a response I claim tiredness. I allude to the sense that I could possibly have had something meaningful in my life that has created a barrier between my being and the access of rest. I create an aura of having an irreplaceable position in any current situation that has halted my physical needs. And when I tell these lies of being tired and leave their minds to conjure up whatever it may about my being exhausted, I just feel forlorn. Because I'm not tired, not in the slightest.

I'm just sad.

But no one wants to hear that and I don't know how to say that. So I'm just tired and the reasoning is up to them.

So, when we're in another dingy diner eating the same old dingy food, it's not that I'm not hungry, it's that I'm tired. And Dean understands, the salt and burn was exhausting so why wouldn't his sasquatch of a brother be tired? And John? He's too busy talking about the next hunt to worry about the lanky teen. When the steady rumbling of the impala and infrequent static of the radio is all that can be heard on the road, it's not that I don't want to talk to Dean or John it's simply that I'm too tired. Which is fine because the trip is long and life just keeps going on.

Being tired is just fine for a long time, until it's just not. I'm tired turns into I'm exhausted and I'm exhausted turns into I'm defeated and I'm defeated turns into absolutely nothing.

The weight of the words aren't worth it anymore and the pressure of the façade is breaking down my being. But Dean doesn't notice and John simply doesn't care. Until finally I'm not tired anymore because I don't feel anymore.

Being numb to the world is a weird feeling. Waking up in the seedy motels and feeling defeated for making it through another night is a weird feeling. Having no concept of self-preservation was a weird feeling. I didn't want to feel these things. Not now, not after everything I have been through. Not after everything Dean had gone through for me. But what was I to do?

My life had become a forlorn highway in the night; stringing me around everywhere and headed nowhere. John had Dean, Dean had hunting, and I had nothing that anyone approved of. School was a joke. Stanford was a joke. Me being a hunter was a joke. So I became none of those things. I became tired. Then I became exhausted. Then I become numb.

Looking in the dingy motel mirror, I finally understood how a spirit could become so deranged. I finally understood why demons go insane and why ghosts can't find it in themselves to move on. Every failure, every defeat, every unresolved issue of my past was written in the lines of my gaunt face. My glassy eyes, my lifeless hair, my waxy complexion; not only did it broadcast my failures_ but I was my failures. _

The first tear cuts down my face like a knife, leaving a stinging behind that declares my weakness. The second tear adds insult to injury and the third tears break down any self-worth I had. The fourth tear brings down an army and the fifth tear begins the attack. The sixth tear surrenders in defeat and the seventh tear stands for the fallen. And down they fall, faster and faster until a cascade of everything I left inside was released and exposed for all to see and none to witness.

A bang on the door startles me and I know it's time for the barriers to get reconstructed. So with a heavy sigh, I turn on the faucet and scrub away the past. I walk out of the bathroom with my shoulders hunched and eyes bloodshot, ignoring Johns muttering of my taking too long. Dean stares at me for a second longer than normal, almost as if he can sense something is different about me for the first time.

"Everything okay, Sammy?" he barks out in his familiar sandpaper voice.

"Yeah," I mumble as I fall into the broken down bed, "Just a little tired."

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Hey everyone, thanks for reading! Not really sure if I'm going to continue with this story! It's currently a one-shot, but if you guys want more please review and let me know your thoughts/ feeling about it! Is anyone interested in an actual story? Thanks loves!


	2. Last Resolve

It takes Dean and John a long time to notice anything out of the ordinary with me. Maybe it was the lack of fights with John, or the silence to Deans teasing. Maybe it was my progressive amount of time spent locked in the bathroom, or maybe it was the fact that my breathing never evened out at night and I never actually fell asleep. Maybe it was my sudden obsession with hunting anything in sight, and maybe it was my sudden death mission that clued them in.

Whatever it was that gave it away, I almost wished it hadn't happened. Getting myself killed was a lot easier without my family breathing down my aching neck.

It was a simple salt and burn, John told us, a routine hunt that we were lucky to pick up on our way to visit Bobby. Children had been going missing at the local high school and it was almost too easy to figure out why; a teacher had been murdered in the school cellar five years earlier. Though we couldn't figure out why she would act out now, John thought it was the most elementary of hunts and decided that running in halfcocked was the way to do it.

So with half a sandwich sitting like a rock in my stomach, I sat in the motel room with Dean, cleaning and packing the guns with rock salt and preparing for our hunt. At this point, preparing guns was easy as breathing and my movements were almost robotic as my mind wandered to the hunt. I sighed as I realized this hunt would do nothing the relive the pressure that had been building up in me. I wanted to hurt something, I wanted to inflict pain and rough something up. I need a release and this hunt would do nothing for me.

I no longer felt tired, so much as I felt angry. I'm not sure when it started, but the anger inside me felt like an all-consuming rage and I could feel it clouding my thoughts. I finally, _finally_, accept the fate that I had been dealt and all I am left with are these half assed hunts that are worth nothing. I didn't want simply burn, I wanted demons. I wanted a fight, I wanted pain, I wanted blood. I needed something to attack me, something to provoke me, so that I could destroy it with my hatred. With my sadness, with my fear, with my fatigue.

I could feel myself progressively getting more agitated until finally, almost unconsciously, I slammed the gun the table with a resounding clang. John jumps a little on the couch and whirls around in his seat as Dean stares at me open mouthed from across the table. I don't say anything as I fly out of my chair and make a beeline for the door. "What the hell is his problem?" I hear John mutter as the motel door slams between us.

Taking deep breaths in the outside air, I feel the tears begin to cascade down my face, even though I have no idea why I feel like I'm being torn up inside. _What the hell is wrong with me? _ I lean against the brick building and slide down until my butt is on the soggy ground and my face is rested on my knees with my hands fisted in my hair. I groan to myself as I let the sobs once again break me down and I just cry.

Dean does not come after me.

I feel pathetic, leaning against the slimy wall of a seedy motel crying like a priss over absolutely nothing. I have no idea what caused me to break down, but after I had allowed it to happen, I find it impossible to pull myself together. I get up and stare at the door that contains my family and I let out a moan of pain as I savagely punch the wall. My knuckles immediately split and the blood runs down my hand, and as it drips, I feel my frustration drip away along with it. Drip goes a little bit of pain. Drip goes a little bit of hostility. Drip goes a little bit of desolation. Drip goes a little bit of monstrosity. Drip goes a little bit of my pathetic soul. And as the drips begin to slow my heart rate does as well, until I am finally calm once more.

I scrub a hand across my face, and rub away any remaining traces of tears. I put on my mask once more, and slowly trudge toward the motel room. I open it to find Dean and John having a heated discussion on the couch. I did not hear what they were saying, but it was definitely about me. They stop immediately as the door opens, leaning unconsciously towards their weapons, until they realize it's me.

Dean knows immediately notices that I had been crying, but because he was Dean and because he was a Winchester, he ignores my pain and feels no remorse when he says, "Is it that time of the month, Princess? Your mood swings are making my head numb."

I scoff loudly and don't respond, in fear that he would hear the hitch in my voice. I glance at John, who has an equal lack of empathy on his face, and I look down at the dingy floor in defeat. My shoulders hunch, and I slowly walk over to my bed.

I sit down and stare at my family and for second and they stare back.

In that moment I am sure that they know I am not alright, nor have I been for some time, but they remain silent and as a result, as do I. But we are Winchesters and we do not have chick flick moments. So the moment is broken with the sound of a beer can opening, and my descent into madness is ignored, with the sounds of the evening news blocking the sound of my last resolve breaking.

I am Sam Winchester, and I have lost the will to live.


End file.
